


Follow the Rules

by Ylevihs (orphan_account)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Blood, Gen, M/M, Meta Horror, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Modern AU, Ouija Board, huxloween fill, monster movie au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Hux was a staunch non-believer in the paranormal. It was ridiculous that he was the one who had to remind Kylo of the basic rules of how to survive in a horror film.For Day 3 of Huxloween





	

The scream echoed and both men crouched down low away from the window sill. Then Kylo was moving, pressing a hand into the center of Hux's chest. 

“Stay here,” he ordered. 

“Ren,” Hux hissed, voice tight with panic. “Are you actually that stupid?” Kylo, still crouching down low to the ground, swiveled on the balls of his feet. His eyes were wild, the whites showing fully around the dark circles of his blown pupils. He had a bloody carving knife in his hand. Hux held up a scolding finger. It shook more than slightly. “First rule of monster films: never split up,” Kylo’s eyes finally narrowed. He was still breathing heavily after manhandling Hux to safety. 

“I thought the first rule was never have sex?” he whispered sarcastically back. His voice was shaking as well, which Hux ignored.

“Fine. Rule two is,”

“And since we’ve already broken rule one, I,” Hux bristled. Surely oral didn’t count? A lifetime addiction to b-rated horror movies pointed out that half-drunken, giggly blow jobs in a hall closet more than counted insofar as most monsters flicks were concerned. Half of his brain smacked the other portion. Now was not the time. He had to focus. He had to stay grounded in reality. He had to. He had to figure out how he hadn’t been able to see that _thing_ in the first place. 

“Ren,” Hux’s hand shot out and gripped Kylo by the edge of his costume shirt. He was dressed like a 1920’s pinstripe gangster (cigar and rose accessory included, plastic gangster gun sold seperately). “You’re missing the point. We’re hidden. We’re armed. We’ve made a call to the authorities. We need to stay put and wait. This. Out,” a very loud thought shone through that only two of those three were even vaguely true. Only Kylo was armed. ‘Hidden’ didn’t count for much when you couldn’t see if your enemy had seen you. 

“Armie that _thing_ killed Thanisson. For all we know it’s killed the others, too,” 

“Viv is not dead,” Hux said automatically, his mouth operating with knee-jerk reaction speed.

“Arm,” in the tone adults take when hesitantly explaining the truth about the tooth fairy. 

“She is not dead,” Hux said firmly. Tried to say firmly. He was desperately aware of how badly he sounded like he was convincing himself. But Phasma was a fighter, even more so than Ren sometimes. She could hold her own. 

“We can’t stay here and wait it out. This isn’t some horror movie; if it is the only person who’ll make it out will be Rey,”

“And her boyfriend would have been first to die,” Hux muttered sourly under his breath and immediately hated himself for doing so. Either Kylo hadn’t heard the comment or chose to ignore it. “And I’m not saying we’re _in_ an actual horror movie. What I’m saying is people in horror movies make stupid decisions that get them killed. Like grabbing a knife and trying to play hero. The cops are coming. They’ll get here and,”

“Find more bodies? Armitage,” Kylo’s hand drifted up and caught the one pulling at his shirt. 

“We have to stay here,” and his voice cracked and Hux only then caught how absolutely terrified he was. Cold adrenaline was flooding his veins and making it hard to breathe. 

“We die if we stay here,” Kylo said firmly. Which really didn’t help to ease the rising tide of helplessness. 

We’re gonna die.

Whatever that thing was, it had lifted Thanisson and ripped open his stomach and crushed his skull against the floor. Even now, in the darker corners of his mind, Hux could see the spot where the young man’s brain matter had begun fusing to the dingy linoleum. There would be no sign of the body now; only bits of blood and bone. 

Holy fucking _shit_ we’re going to die. 

Distantly Hux felt Kylo’s fingers tangle with his own. They squeezed and the pressure brought Hux back down. 

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Kylo said firmly, eyes pinned to Hux’s. Something inside Hux wailed softly.

“I swear to God if you try to be a hero,” he said finally, mouth twisting bitterly over the words. Kylo’s brow lifted slightly.

“Not even to save you?” part of Hux recognized it as a joke. Not a big enough one. 

“Especially not to fucking save me,” he said it louder than he meant to. Much louder. They winced in unison, Hux ducking further down, Kylo’s head popping up slightly over the edge of the bed. They’d locked and barricaded the only door and were hidden on the side of the bed which faced the only window. Second story. 

 

Hux had last seen Phasma and Dopheld in the den. Thanisson’s Halloween party had long since died down, the few stragglers, Phasma, Mitaka, himself, Ren, Pava, Rey, Finn, would most likely bed down in on various pieces of furniture until morning. He’d no idea where Rey and Finn had gone, but their mutual disappearance had left a sour expression on Pava’s face ever since. 

The house still smelled of sweaty bodies and liquor. 

Thanisson, dressed as a ninja, sat on one end of the couch, Mitaka on the other. Phasma took up the place in between. 

She was dressed as a Valkyrie and had been surreptitiously hitching her dress up more and more as the night had gone on. Mitaka had noticed—he was the cowardly lion and distracted himself by pretending to fret over the fake fur falling out of his hat. He and Kylo sat across from them on the loveseat. Every once and a while Kylo’s hand would drift down and squeeze Hux’s bare thigh. Hux casually, in a manner that communicated ‘not now, but later’, brushed the hand away. Kylo shrugged and flipped his hand, sending the edge of the toga flying up for a moment before Hux managed to wrangle it back down.

It wouldn’t be the first time Hux would regret being talked into dressing up as Caesar; the toga certainly left a great deal to be desired insofar as privacy. But the breeze wasn’t entirely awful. 

Then Jessika had brought out the Ouija board. Rather fittingly, in Hux’s opinion, she was dressed up like a dime-store witch. Black clothing she’d had in her closet and a pointed hat. She carried the box and several candles under her arm. A fire hazard, Hux thought dimly. 

“Look what I brought from my house,” she said liltingly. Kylo straightened so suddenly that the momentum slid the loveseat back. 

“Nope. That shit is bad news, put it away Pava,” Kylo said, staring at the box in her hands. “Right now,” Across from them Hux could see concern in Mitaka’s face. He’d stopped fumbling with his costume and was now eyeing the box nervously. Jessika frowned and leaned in close to Kylo to whisper harshly at him.

“Chill Ren, it’s just a game. See?” she tapped the side of the box. “It’s made by Hasbro, not Lucifer,” she paused. “How badly do you think I can freak Doph’ out before Phasma tries to ‘comfort’ him?” Her eyes glittered. From his position on the couch Hux could see Kylo’s eyes narrow. 

“I don’t care who made it. You shouldn’t use that thing if you don’t know what you’re doing, the spirit world,” Pava cut him off with a bark of laughter. She’d been drinking—they all had—and she clumsily set the box on the table and began unpacking it. Phasma leaned forward and picked up the planchette. 

“Ooh, the spiriiiiit world,” she wiggled her fingers in the air. “Come on Hux, I know you’re in, right? You don’t believe in this, you think it’s something called the idiot effect,” Hux looked down at the board she was setting up and then back at the man who’d been groping him.

“The ideomotor effect and I don’t think, I know. I’ll watch,” Kylo frowned. Hux shrugged dismissively. “It’s just a game,” Kylo frowned deeper. Hux sighed. Side with the boyfriend, his mind told him, side with the boyfriend unless you want to sleep on the couch. Again. He held his hands up in surrender. “Alright. Okay. I’m out too,” 

Jessika pouted at him as he stood. Hux ignored her and offered his hand to Kylo. “Come on, let’s go see what’s left of the pizza,” Jessika was just beginning to tell some bullshit story about someone who’d died in the house and was seeking revenge when they left the den for the kitchen. The house had been built in the early 2000’s. It had been an empty lot for decades before that. 

“It’s bad news,” Kylo repeated under his breath. 

“Sure,” Hux said dismissively, not wanting to start a fight. He scanned the room and found what he’d really been looking for: a half filled bottle of tequila, next to the twisted remains of a few sliced limes from earlier in the evening. They’d been sober enough at the time to at least put the shot glasses in the sink. “You want a shot?” he asked over his shoulder, preparing his own. 

“I’m serious Armie,” Kylo said and his voice had an edge to it. Hux had long known that the other man believed in that sort of thing; it usually didn’t bother him because Kylo kept his inane proclivities to himself. Hux was a man of science. Empirical data. If Kylo chose to believe in ghosts and boogeymen and bumps in the night, so be it, he’d never tried to convince Hux to believe. In exchange Hux did his best not to be a completely disrespectful ass when Kylo talked about that sort of thing.  
He took the shot, not bothering with the lime or salt and let the burn keep him from saying something he’d regret. “Those things have more power than people give them credit for,” Kylo continued. 

“In horror movies,” it was out before he could stop it but Kylo didn’t rise to the bait.

“Fine, think of it as a horror movie, then,” Kylo crossed his arms over his chest. “Nothing good comes from messing with other plains of existence, it’s rule number one in horror films.”

“No,” Hux corrected, “Rule number one is never have sex,” he smirked as he said it, which seemed to be enough to give Kylo pause. They locked eyes for a moment or two. Then Hux poured a shot for Kylo and extended it out to him. After a moment Kylo took it and Hux waited for him to stop wincing before drawing in closer. 

“There’s nothing to talk to anyway, right? This place isn’t haunted. You’ve said yourself this town in a dead zone.”

“That doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Kylo said and Hux could hear the petulance rising in his voice. “There are always things, Armie, itching to find their way in,”

“Fine. Okay. Do you really think they’ll be able to ‘make contact’ with anything tonight?” Hux was actually proud of how level he managed to keep his voice. He didn’t sound condescending at all. Kylo looked anxious for a moment and then sneered at the world in general.

“Probably not,” he conceded. 

“Well then. What do you say to us making ourselves scarce for a bit while the kids play their game?” he lifted his eyebrows and pointed his chin in the direction of Thanisson’s laundry room. He felt warm hands on his hips, curving around to palm at his backside. Kylo had cast a wary glance back towards the den and Hux began kissing his neck, sucking a hickey into creation. They walked backwards into the small room and Hux kicked the door shut behind them. 

The screaming started just as Kylo was pulling the zipper back up on his pants. 

They opened the door and. Thanisson was frozen in midair, like a paused frame of a movie. His body was suspended about two feet off of the ground, feet dangling uselessly above the tile. Both of his arms were stretched out in front of him, hands clawed as if he was trying to throttle something. He was screaming but neither his mouth or chest was moving; no air was visibly coming or going. Unseeing eyes stared dead ahead of him, unfocused on anything in the room. 

He’s floating, said a numb voice in the back of Hux’s head. Good job recognizing that, genius, chorused the rest of Hux’s mind. Rather than focus on what a floating man in the middle of a kitchen meant Hux’s train of thought was violently derailed by the sight of Thanisson’s costume being torn from his upper body. The fabric crumpled to the floor. 

Then a long horizontal line appeared, stretching from one hip to another. It looked like a shallow knife cut. Thanisson remained still but the sound of his screams took on a different nature. Before they’d been terrified; now they were seasoned with notes of pain. 

Finally Hux managed to move his feet and darted forward. There was nothing in front of Thanisson, despite the fact that all logic would dictate there be _something_ even if it couldn’t be seen. But Hux’s hands reached Thanisson without meeting any barrier. Hux reached up and pulled down on Thanisson’s shoulders and was met with solid resistance. He wrapped more of his arms around the smaller man’s shoulder’s—even suspended as he was, Thanisson was only barely above Hux’s head—and used as much of his weight as he could. Thanisson didn’t budge an inch; his screams were turning to shrieks. They made Hux’s stomach turn; he felt sudden, warm wetness on his chest.  
The white of his stupid toga was stained red with blood. 

“Shit, Thanisson,” 

There was a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back sharply. Kylo darted forward and as he did Hux caught sight of the wound splitting open, like an over ripe banana. 

A voice in Hux’s head unhelpfully identified the thing bulging out of the seam as part of a liver. There was something else there. Just on the edge of vision; Hux eyes lost focus and he could see. He assumed it was a hand, it was on the end of what may have kindly been called an arm, pulling organs from Thanisson’s body. Dragging the rest of the liver out, it slapped sickly to the ground, before darting back in. Hux saw Thanisson’s abdomen bow out as the hand dug around in his guts. He was still frozen in place, unable to defend himself, unable to do anything besides scream. 

Hux’s eyes were still slightly unfocused when they registered. Oh. Kylo. Flanking. With a knife. Coils of Thanisson’s intestine were now slopping onto the floor like damp rope. Thanisson’s screams had turned to gurgled whimpers. Hux watched distantly, there was no way this was happening, he reasoned, as Kylo stabbed the creature in the side. It grunted and swatted behind it; Kylo dodged right and stabbed it again. It didn’t bleed. The thing reared back and on the edge of vision Hux saw it grab Thanisson’s head and slam his skull against the kitchen floor.

Where was everyone else? Shouldn’t there be? This couldn’t be because of.

Hux’s brain rang the bell at the courtesy desk and requested an early check out. 

Hand tight on his upper arm, pulling, dragging. Crunching behind him; the, oh god, the thing was eating. There was blood spatter in the den, on the carpet, the furniture. The Ouija board was on the floor, broken. Kylo was dragging him up the stairs. Physically dragging; Hux’s legs didn’t seem to work at the moment. This wasn’t happening. They were in a room. Bedroom. He was practically thrown onto a bed and. Kylo was pushing a dresser in front of the door. 

What remained of Hux’s brain began sending out drones to wrangle his panic into submission. His eyes found a purse on the ground. Peeking out of the front pocket was a phone. His fingers shook as he dialed. 

“911, what is the location of your emergency?” the call was picked up after the first ring. The voice behind it sounded bored. Halloween saw a lot of prank calls coming in, second only to reports of rowdy teens causing mischief. 

“Uh,” Hux’s mind blanked for a moment, “Uh, 2187 West Empire…circle. I think,” he could hear fingers tapping against a keyboard. “It’s..thisisn’tmyhouse,” he said too rapidly and had to take a steadying breath. “There was a party,”

“Alright, sir, do you need police, fire or medical?” the woman on the other end of the line spoke slowly and clearly. 

“Police,” he hesitated, “and medical. There’s been. Someone’s been killed, maybe more are injured. I don’t,” Hux trailed. There had been a lot of blood in the den. Some part of Hux’s brain knew it would be a very bad idea to tell her that the thing wasn’t human. “I don’t know,”

“Sir, are you in or can you reach a safe location?” Hux glanced up to where Kylo was gingerly testing how much the door could open against the dresser. Barely half an inch. What would it matter? Hux thought on the edge of hysteria. It was a monster. He’d gone right through it. He’d practically been standing in it. It wouldn’t give a shit about a door.  
Her voice still didn’t sound like she believed him. Again, teenage pranksters must’ve been making similar calls all evening. 

“Yes,” he lied, fighting to silence his brain. 

“Are you alone?”

“No. There’s someone else with me,” Kylo glanced over his shoulder and seemed to realize for the first time that Hux was on the phone. He stared. They both looked down at the knife; there was blood on the blade. It hadn’t come from the creature but rather had caught some of the spray from Thanisson. 

“Alright, sir, I’m going to dispatch police to your location. I need you to stay on the line with me, can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Good, what’s your name sir?”

“Armitage,” there was a pause. “Hux,”

“Alright Hux. You’re doing very well. The police are on their way; they should be there in a few minutes. Can you give me any information about the attack that I can tell the police? Was the suspect armed?”

“N-,” there was a scream. Hux’s stomach dropped. “I have to go,”

“Sir, do not hang up, stay on--,” Hux silenced her and darted to the window. There was a figure running outside in the backyard, unpursued. It looked like Pava, but it was hard to tell in the gloom. Whoever it was hopped the fence and disappeared into the darkness. The house was silent for a moment. And then there was another scream that echoed and made both men flinch away from the window sill. 

 

And now Kylo wanted to play hero. Heroes get killed, said a very loud voice in Hux’s brain. Big, strong, strapping heroes with good hair and broad chests get killed because they hear a scream and rush in to save the day. He was still thinking in horror movie tropes, but he couldn’t stop himself. 

“Kylo,”

“We’ll find who we can and get out. Deal?” Kylo was staring at him. There was a crash from somewhere below them on the first floor. Hux took in a deep steadying breath. 

“We find who we can and get out,” he agreed, hating every word that passed his lips. At least we’ll die together, said a resigned voice in the back of his head.

**Author's Note:**

> If the mood strikes me I may write more for this.


End file.
